Housekeeping/course evaluations

Several requests for extra-credit opportunity. In 2s or 3s, if we were to have an EC opportunity = to one blog post, what should it be? Take 5, post as a comment on this post. I’ll review and decide while y’all are doing the evals

Lab

For Finals Week : Wed 14 March at 7:00 pm

Post to your blog (categorize as project): A short post promoting your project, with a properly formed hyperlink and good use of keywords : because blog pages do not (as a general rule) have RSS

Reflection (to catalyst) : An essay that reflects on the project: now that you have completed it, what would you d0 differently if you could start over? How well did you meet your goals for success? What have you learned in the course of the project? You must give examples (evidence, such as references to readings or other material covered in class). How will you apply these learnings outside the classroom? Length: 850-1000 words

Discussion Leaders

Discussion

Projects

Wednesday

Wednesday 14 March, 7 pm (finals week)

Post to your blog (categorize as project): A short post promoting your project, with a properly formed hyperlink and good use of keywords.

Post to catalyst: An essay that reflects on the project: now that you have completed it, what would you d0 differently if you could start over? How well did you meet your goals for success? What have you learned in the course of the project? You must give examples (evidence, such as references to readings or other material covered in class). How will you apply these learnings outside the classroom? Length: 850-1000 words

Practicing what we’ve learned

We’ll divide into four groups (perhaps based in part on what you wrote about after Monday)

Each group has a scenario and statement of work

Groups will report out to the class

Someone needs to be the “recorder” who posts a summary of the group’s work as a comment on this post; someone else should be the “reporter”

Scenarios

You work for a not-for-profit organization (not an agency) and your new president wants the organization add a blog to the website. The president is interested in blogging on behalf of the organization but also wants the executive director to blog as well. Your job is to put together a plan to make this happen; you report to the ED.

Who might be the audience for the blog?

What are the pluses/minuses of having the blog be self-hosted (integrated with your website) versus externally hosts (like WordPress.com)? Make and explain your recommendation.

How do you develop a publishing schedule? What can you do to coordinate the postings of the two organization leaders? How does the content change depending on the people who write for the blog? Should there be more voices than these two? Why?

What kinds of policies do you need to have in place regarding content?

How will you promote your blog?

What other considerations should be included in your report?

You work for a corporation that sells products at retail; your new boss (the VP of marketing) has decided the company needs a blog. You’ve been told to create one. Where do you start? What do you do?

Who might be the audience for the blog?

What are the pluses/minuses of having the blog be self-hosted (integrated with your website) versus externally hosts (like WordPress.com)? Make and explain your recommendation.

How do you find people to write for the blog? Or should there be only one author? If there are multiple authors, how do you make it clear who is talking? How does the content change depending on the people who write for the blog?

What kinds of policies do you need to have in place regarding content?

How will you promote your blog?

What other considerations should be included in your report?

You work for a local politician who is going to run for a new office (one up the ladder, so to speak). You are trying to incorporate blogs and other forms of social media into the campaign.

What are the pluses/minuses of having the blog be self-hosted (integrated with your website) versus externally hosts (like WordPress.com)? Make and explain your recommendation.

How do you decide who writes on behalf of the candidate? Or does only the candidate write? If there are multiple authors, how do you make it clear who is talking? How does the content change depending on the people who write for the blog?

What kinds of policies do you need to have in place regarding content?

How will you promote your blog and social accounts?

What other considerations should be included in your recommendation?

You work for an appointed state government agency executive. It’s 2013 and there’s a new governor; your boss has worked in this field but was just appointed to this position. You are trying to figure out what to do with a dormant blog.

Who might be the audience for the blog?

What do you do with the old content? Do you stay with the current hosting system (externally hosted on WordPress) or do you integrate the blog with the agency website? Why?

How do you tap people to write for the blog? Or should there be only one author, the exec? If there are multiple authors, how do you make it clear who is talking How does the content change depending on the people who write for the blog?

What kinds of policies do you need to have in place regarding content?

I know that most of the time there is a perceived level of objectivity in news reporting, but these things don’t happen in a vacuum and someone’s opinion is bound to influence stories. I think we recognize that as readers and it is therefore only natural that we find blogs to be more authentic and credible as a result. At least it’s clear which way political bias leans in blogs and it makes it easier for readers to understand how a post may be skewed.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the future of mainstream media begins to look a little less like a circus, and more like organizations who have to compete with more raw, real, and altogether better, though smaller, news sources. In competition, in my world I’m painting in my mind, mainstream media will start concentrating on unfettered, hard news. Pandering to drama will become a thing of the past.

Politics makes me sad. It really does. I get very frustrated because politics is all about getting your way and doing what’s best for the people whose hands are in your pockets, not the people you represent.

The million dollar question is, how do we integrate the web 2.0 into the existing structure? My personal opinion (and I’m pretty sure the economy would crash, again, if this advice were to be followed), is that it shouldn’t… The change I am suggesting is not just that we give up on local papers and local news channels – but we need a bigger culture shift. Be comfortable with listening to something and give credence to words and ideas and thoughts and feelings that come from something other than CNN and ‘brought to you by…’ pictures. It’s different than our parents past, and different from their parents. This is still the infancy of the Web 2.0 revolution, and right now it’s only the media that we are discussing, but we are in an in-between stage right now, and it isn’t far enough. I’m willing to walk down that path, because the only other option is to turn back.

Discussion leaders

I’m glad the author referenced the @BPGlobalPR Twitter feed at the height of the Gulf oil spill. To me, reading that every day, was like taking Jon Stewart, The Onion and Twitter, and mashing it with our collective frustrations and need to cope with the insanity and stupidity.

My Grandpa is a retired politician. He retired about 20 years ago. I remember finding a bunch of pot holders in an old box at his house when I was a kid. They were red, white and blue and they had his name on them, along with a small elephant silhouette. That was part of campaigning back then. When I asked him about the pot holders he said, “The idea was to try to get women votes.” Because of course that’s what a man of his age would say.

The second finding I was intrigued by stated that blog readers perceive blogs as a more credible source of news than any other medium, including newspapers, TV, and radio news. One of the reasons for this is because complex information is presented in a manner that is understandable and relevant to their audience. That is the exact reason that if I were to want to start following political news, I’d turn to blogs.

How do you evaluate a blog [political or otherwise] before committing and subscribing to it?

Your questions

How do you find blog(s) that you follow? [political or otherwise]

There was a study finding in the “Why Blog?” paper that stated that blog readers perceive blogs as a more credible source of news than any other news medium. Why do you think this to be true? (If you even think it’s true.)

What do you think it would be like [what would it take!] if something as big as CNN just completely abandoned television and went fully digital?

What does it mean that politics has been affected by social media?

How does politically concentrated blogging activities compare with offline participation in politicians campaigning for office?

How do you evaluate a political blog (before committing and subscribing to it!)?

From comments

what other arguments are there that support separating amateurs from professional?

[flipped] how will formal news agencies affect blogging?

Why does a political candidate get positive attention for taking full advantage of social media, when they likely don’t even know the login/password to their account?

What would encourage consumers to look past their preconceived ideas?

why do people never question the validity of anything in the media about politics? What gives them the “approval” stamp?

How can we awaken people to other conversations when they’re not necessarily wanting to be open in the first place?

Projects

If you have posted an update, get together with others who have for support and to pool questions for me

I’ll answer questions as best I can – we can do one-on-ones after lab if needed

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